The initial SPP Working Groups were the Manufactured Goods and Sectoral and Regional Competitiveness Working Group, E-Commerce & ICT Working Group, Energy Working Group, Transportation Working Group, Food & Agriculture Working Group, Environment Working Group, Financial Services Working Group, Business Facilitation Working Group, Movement of Goods Working Group, Health, and Immigration.[2]

These working groups were tasked with implementing the SPP as initiated by the North American Heads of Government and 30 CEOs of the largest corporations from each respective country on March 23, 2005.[citation needed] They were to consult with stakeholders; set specific, measurable, and achievable goals and implementation dates; and issue semiannual progress reports. A 24-month agenda was established to serve as a time line milestone to have the initial framework fully developed.

The stated goals of the SPP were cooperation and information sharing, improving productivity, reducing the costs of trade, enhancing the joint stewardship of the environment, facilitating agricultural trade while creating a safer and more reliable food supply, and protecting people from disease.[citation needed]

North American Facilitation of Transportation, Trade, Reduced Congestion & Security (NAFTRACS) was a three-phase pilot project designed to focus on business processes and information as freight is transported from buyers to sellers. The project was intended to create a partnership between businesses and local, state, and federal governments, while claiming to foster cooperation among the same entities.[citation needed]

On 26 February 2008, Canada's Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, announced his government's 2008 budget, which included "$29 million over two years to meet priorities under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America".[3]

The North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) was an official tri-national working group of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). It was created at the second summit of the SPP in Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico, in March 2006. Composed of 30 corporate representatives from some of North America's largest companies, the North American Competitiveness Council has been mandated to set priorities for the SPP and to act as a stable driver of the integration process through changes in government in all three countries.

The meeting went almost unpublicized by local and national media outlet, and its narrow timeframe of announcement meant it was ignored by a vast majority of the public. It did, however, attract protesters who were concerned about excessive secrecy surrounding the event. Redacted meeting minutes of the meeting have been obtained and posted online.[6]

The United States, Canada, and Mexico had a major trilateral summit meeting regarding SPP at the Château Montebello in Montebello, Quebec.[7] This conference was described as a public relations event with the purpose of promoting the SPP among investors and to reassure the public about the consequences of the plan.[8] A protest during the event led to controversy, when labour leaders identified three masked, rock-wielding individuals as disguised police officers and accused them of disguising themselves as demonstrators in order to incite violence.[9] Footage of the clash was shown on YouTube and attracted significant media attention; the Quebec Provincial Police subsequently admitted that the individuals in question had been police officers in disguise, but denied any attempts to incite violence.[10]

In his 2008 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush announced that a summit on the SPP would be held from April 21–22, 2008, in New Orleans, Louisiana. According to the White House, the summit focused on improving the SPP initiatives and on discussing "hemispheric and global issues of importance to North America".[11]

In 2006, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs argued that the SPP was part of a plan to merge the United States, Canada, and Mexico into a North American Union similar to the European Union.[12] At the time, Dobbs claimed that U.S. President Bush, who left office on January 20, 2009, was to have bypassed Congress and ultimately create a Union based on a Texas highway corridor.[13] One variation of this theory was that President Bush would declare a state of emergency to avoid leaving office, which, in fact, never came about; on January 20, 2009, his successor, Barack Obama, who had openly voiced misgivings about NAFTA, the predecessor to SPP, let alone SPP itself, took office as U.S. President, but his anti-NAFTA views soon disappeared from his public persona.[citation needed]

The Council of Canadians claimed that the SPP extended the controversial "no fly list" of the United States, made Canadian water a communal resource, and forced Canada and Mexico to adopt the United States' security policies—one of which would allow foreign military forces to neglect sovereignty in the case of a "civil emergency". In addition, it also touched on the issue of Albertan tar sands expansion to five times its current size.[14]

On May 10, 2007, Conservative MP Leon Benoit, chair of the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade, prevented University of Alberta professor Gordon Laxer from testifying that SPP would leave Canadians "to freeze in the dark" because "Canada itself—unlike most industrialized nations—has no national plan or reserves to protect its own supplies" by saying Laxer's testimony was irrelevant, defying a majority vote to overrule his motion, shutting down the Committee meeting, and leaving with the other three out of four Conservative members; the meeting later continued presided by the Liberal vice-chair.[15] After these disruptions, the National Post reported on a Conservative party manual to, among other things, usurp Parliamentary committees and cause chaos in unfavourable committees.[16][17] The New Democratic Party also criticized SPP for being undemocratic, not open to Parliament, and opaque.[18]New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton described the process as not simply unconstitutional, but "non-constitutional", held completely outside the usual mechanisms of oversight.[19]

Approximately thirty U.S.-based organizations also sent an open letter to Congress on April 21, 2008, criticizing the secrecy and lack of any sort of democratic oversight:

"What differentiates the SPP from other security and trade agreements is that it is not subject to Congressional oversight or approval. The SPP establishes a corporate/government bureaucracy for implementation that excludes civil society participation. ... Facing a worrisome pact pushed forward in secrecy, it is time for Congress to halt this undemocratic approach and establish a process based on openness, accountability, and the participation of civil society.[20]

In August 2009, the SPP website was updated to say: "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) is no longer an active initiative. There will not be any updates to this site".[21] Subsequent to this the website link does not connect and the cache website links do not work.

The NDP has called this a "victory" which is "the result of the active and sustained efforts across the country, and across North America, of Canadian, Mexican, and American activists from the labour movement, civil society, progressive legislators and all those concerned and committed to build a better quality of life in our Canada and throughout North America".[22]

On February 4, 2011, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama announced a new security and prosperity initiative with plans to "pursue a perimeter approach to security in ways that support economic competitiveness, job creation, and prosperity".[23]

On March 13, 2011, the Canadian government announced it was beginning a five-week consultation process "with all levels of government and with communities, non-governmental organizations and the private sector, as well as with our citizens on the implementation of the shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness".[24]